Happy New Year!

It's a bright shiny new year, 2016.

My how they've grown.  I'm making it my mission this year to take more photographs and make more memories in general.  It feels like 2015 flew by so fast that I barely remember any of it.  I've got a busy year ahead of me.

So of course we started our year by going for a little walk.  There's not much to see where we live, industrial everywhere you look, but sometimes a bit more interesting when you see the relics of the past still there.  The kids were amazed to realise that we have a canal on our doorstep.  The massive networks used to service the industrial heart of the Black Country, now home to ducks much to the kids' delight.  

I had my heart set on Blipfoto this year again, after the let down last year and missing a few weeks because of their takeover by Polaroid.  It's died a death sadly (3 months after the Polaroid takeover funnily enough) and I've got no confidence in it now that I realise I'll have to manually copy each photo, title and caption.  So hopefully I'll just get a photo a day and try to actually keep myself blogging.  For now, Happy new year!

A Little Update from Me

Boy oh boy, life just flails by doesn't it.  Flails isn't the right word, and I know that underneath but my brain is like, "flails, yes."  So I'm just going with it.  Swept away on the current of my scattered brain.  There's a theory that scattered-mother-brain is down to hyper awareness.  We're "on" 24/7 as mothers (and fathers) so we're all over the place mentally.

Anyway, yes.  I've been busy busy busy, doing... nothing really!  I've done some decorating in anticipation of The Big Move, which isn't finished but at least it's some way to there.  I'm currently trying to figure out what the next few weeks entails and enlisted a little help from the Passion Planner thingy.  I just can't say that and keep a straight face.  Such a child.

I'm still battling with myself and mostly winning in the healthy eating stakes, and losing a fair bit of weight in the process.  I think I have around just under 2 stone to lose now.  Not long!

Something I'm battling with is apathy.  Just, things are "meh".  So I'm constantly pushing myself now to make things better again, to jump out of bed in the morning feeling excited and fresh and all that.  Not cuddling down with my babies and going, "5 more minutes".  It's excruciatingly hard to get out of, but I'm slowly figuring out the way.  I know that my series of unfortunate events have led to this, so it's not been a naturally occurring thing, giving me a way out.

Besides, when life keeps throwing you obstacles (vertigo at the moment, so no upside down yoga for me!) you know you're doing something right ;)

Just a little update on my little girls:

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  New Year is usually a time for people to make promises and resolutions to better their lives.  While my friends on Facebook are for the most part cynical about all this stuff, (and who could blame them?  We all make unrealistic promises that we never keep) I have made some very big vows to myself and my young family.  Today has been jam-packed already and I'm so happy that the New Year has finally come around, a landmark date to make a better life.  I've been very busy getting things done already.

Here's to health, wealth and happiness!

I make my own luck

Lara Croft said that, in case you didn't know.  Ok, fair's fair, we can't control everything and sometimes bad luck just happens.  Currently, as luck would have it, I'm set for the next few weeks, unable to do pretty much anything.  It sucks, and it's getting me a little down, but once it's passed I'll be fine.  I've had an attack of shingles down my left arm, meaning I can't do much of anything because of the way it's affected the nerve.  No jewellery, no photography, no work, no barely anything.  Still, I've been using the time to plot out the next year and I'm starting to formulate some lovely big plans :D  Health permitting ;) service resumes as normal soon!

Strong is Fighting

Oh no, it's one of those blogs.  Motivational quotes, gaaah, run away!  No.  I've been watching a fair bit of Buffy while conquering my ironing piles recently (God how a two and three year old make washing pile up fast!)  I love this quote though, we may have a lack of slaying vampires, but we still all have our challenges to overcome.  For some of us those challenges seem trivial, but they are challenges nonetheless.  I've learned in the past few days that working hard and keeping at those difficult things we need to do to get places we want to be really pays off.

I haven't even compiled a to do list.  Very unlike me.  It's my thing!  I have mountains of blank notebooks just waiting for such an occasion.  But I know that if I start making lists of things I'll get so demotivated that I'll end up backwards and hiding in a blanket fort in bed.  But yes, definitely making progress!  It's all good!

One of the many things I've started focusing on is photography.  I recently (relatively to how often I blog - ha!) posted about photography but I've neglected it for around two months now which is terrible!  Here's my latest:

I don't often get time to pick up the camera.  It involves a fair bit of fiddling that I'm not used to, and trying to keep it out of the hands of the girls plus trying to actually get them to co-operate and stay still for a split second.  Still, I love the fact that I can get such meaningful photographs.  There's something so much richer and so much more depth to these photos than those I can take with my phone camera.

Anyway, remember: strong is fighting!  And I'm absolutely loving that rush of non-stop right now.

A New Leaf

Have you ever wanted to start again?  I have, repeatedly.  Things go wrong for every one don't they?  And we get into a slump and just can't get ourselves out.  I'll hold my hands up and admit, things haven't quite been how I'd planned them lately.  Don't get me wrong, so much in life is amazing.  My family for instance.  I love them to the moon and back!  But it's about time to turn life around, live a little bit differently.  I'm not sure where my new adventure will take me, but it will be an adventure to remember.  Til next time!

Getting better (again)

I took this of the kids playing in their room during the summer holidays.  We seem to do a lot of staying home these days, if we aren't off to preschool.  I can't even remember if I blogged about this already.  My memory is terrible lately, even down to forgetting or switching simple words.  I can't find a post about it so I'll go ahead and do it anyway.

My health has always been something I've taken for granted.  My only previous medical issues were during pregnancy - routine ones at that.  I had gallstones confirmed by a scan when Katie was tiny, but they never caused me any problems after that.  I've never been overweight, health was just never an issue at all.  And that's how I lived life.  I ate whatever, and did little to no exercise.  Life was fine the way it was.

Until I was ill.  I've had the odd cough and cold over time, they're nothing - especially to a busy mother - you just medicate and move on.  But God, nothing could ease the pain I felt through my body.  Everything was agony.  I could barely move for the pain.  Pain killers didn't touch it.  I lay in bed for about two or three days, moping, feeling sorry for myself, occasionally emerging to sit on the sofa and wince a bit as the kids climbed over me.  Then came the sickness.  Then the weakness.  I felt so ill.  There's no other way to describe it than that really.  It sounds so trivial when I say it.  I felt ill.  But it was like no cough or cold or flu I'd had before.

I can't even remember how but my mum ended up coming over to see how I was.  She took one look at me and insisted on going to A&E.  I was completely in denial at this stage, I thought it was a complete overreaction.  Asides from the fact that I had to take a sick bowl in the car and into the hospital waiting room, and she had to support me while I tried to hobble along.  I mostly expected the doctors at the hospital to turn me away and tell me to go to my GP or something.  But they didn't.

Something scared me in that little cubicle in A&E.  They pricked me with needles, took blood and ran all kinds of tests on me.  And then the doctor came back and his first words were, "is there anyone to take care of your children?"

...

I lay there on the bed kind of gob-smacked for a moment before telling him they were with Tom.  I hadn't even told them I had kids, the doctor must have seen it on my notes.  The doctor told me he wanted to keep me in overnight to do more tests and keep an eye on me.  It was my liver apparently.  This scared me more.  What I actually had seems so trivial compared to what I initially thought it was.  There's a history of cancer in my family.  I was convinced that it was my turn now.  I was petrified.  It just kept running around in my head again and again.  What about my kids?  What about our future?  We were supposed to grow old together.  Turns out this anxiety was part of the package deal.

I tell you, being wheeled through a hospital on a bed, lying down, is completely... I don't even know the word for it.  I felt like a helpless little child.  They wouldn't even put me in a wheelchair.  I had to lie down with little cot rails on the sides and be pushed to my destination by this burly dude who seemed to see me as a pile of boxes with office files or something haha.  It would be two hours before they came back with my test results.  My notes said "acute Epstein Barr Virus" aka Glandular Fever.  Yay for me.  I was released the day after but not until I'd had a drip hooked up to my right hand, scans ordered, a piece of toast and bled all over the floor from my cannula site (fun).

It's no biggie right?  Pfft, Glandular Fever.  Get back to work!  Yeah, uh, no.  It's four months later and here I am still struck down with the damn thing.  While my appetite returned about two weeks after my hospital stay (I lost half a stone in the meantime, how half my clothes don't fit), like many others who've had EBV I regularly get bouts of extreme fatigue bunched with all sorts of dark cloud feelings.  It's like a rollercoaster, back to normal, then down again.

And as lucky as I was, that it was only EBV, I feel robbed.  I'm not old, I'm 28 years old.  But some days I can't walk down the street.  Some days I can't get out of bed.  Some days I can't make it past 8:30pm without falling asleep.  Still, it's just another of life's hurdles.  What would life be if it wasn't for challenges?  It's just that, compared to my old, simple life - I have a little more to contend with now.  And I'll wear that like a badge of honour on those difficult days when I've not managed to do very much at all.

On the good news, last check my liver function is returning to normal, and I've decided to embark on a 100 day challenge to eat healthily and exercise to give my body the best resources for recovery.  Day 9 today.  It's killing me.  I really, really, really, really, actually REALLY want a KFC.

Picking up the Pliers (again)

I've had something of a creative drought for the past few months (might even be a year!) and something had to be done!  I've been doing a fair bit of catching up, so I've got lots to show you, but for now you can have my latest - the first piece of jewellery I've made in a long time.

I've had the centre bead for such a long time, more than five years for sure!  I picked up some antique brass pieces as I love that look lately, just stared at the beads for some inspiration for the drops and there it was!  Wrapping and going off the mould isn't something I've ever been comfortable with doing but I thought it just looked so perfect in the centre of the brass.  Seeing as I've been doing a lot of "winging it" with crochet, figuring out patterns myself, I went ahead and just wrapped it in there.  I absolutely love the finished necklace.  I've got another of the centre beads so I might have another go soonish!

Of course, I took these pictures with the DSLR.  The more I develop my photography skills the more confident I am with taking photos like this.  I used to be terrible with taking pictures of jewellery and other crafts I'd done because I was never happy with the finished photo, editing them to within an inch of their lives.  I'm really pleased with how these turned out though!

Getting back into photography

There's definitely something a little bit special about a picture taken with a "big camera", or a DSLR as normal people call them haha.  I decided to pick it up again recently and have been trying to get photos as often as I can.  It's not as easy as it looks, especially since I insist on manually focusing, even on moving kids.  I'm yet to master all the various functions, getting the lighting right, getting the colour right and so on but I'm sort of winging it for now.

I'm always a little envious of those girls who manage to get out there with their camera, especially if they have kiddies like me.  The area we live in, lets say, is a little less than ideal and I don't feel too happy about getting my phone out in public let alone an expensive and hard to hide camera.  So I'm restricted a bit to our little home and outings with Tom.  Still, it's nice to be able to do the little bit that I can.

You can catch my progress at Blipfoto.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

A New (Old) Project

I'm a hoarder, that's for sure.  I've got a fair few of the Mollie Makes kits stashed away and decided to have a go at making one tonight.  It's the Kitschy Digitals Retro Felt Doll kit that came with issue 34.

Mollie Makes issue 34 kit - Kitschy Digitals Retro Felt Doll

Now I've had my run-in with a Mollie Makes kit before, the very first one I ever attempted.  I can't remember which issue it was but suffice to say there was a lot of frustration and a teensy bit of swearing involved.  I realised I wasn't alone when other crafty people online complained of the same problems and the magazine issued a correction to the pattern - hey presto, the pattern worked.

This kit is no different.  I'm not quite sure why Mollie Makes likes to provide embroidery thread for stitching edges.  Even in the picture of this little quirky doll the edges are done with regular cotton which is much easier and would have left me with my fingertips intact for all that battling to get the thread through the very tough felt.

Still, a very cute pattern, though progress is slow:

Dolly Snake - "Kill meeeeee."

My doll resembles something from Silent Hill maybe?  Or a Little Big Planet foe?  She'll look a bit cuter when her innards aren't on display hopefully!

Time to Face Facts

Yep, I'll never be a master website designer.  It's such a headache.  I've been trying for a while now to figure out how to configure my layout and so on and no, it's just not happening.  So I'm taking the chicken way out, and my home will stay here :D  My brain and Wordpress just don't get along nicely.

"So what have I been up to lately?" I hear you not ask.

Nothing much ;)

I am now the proud mother of a pre-schooler and toddler.  Wow, how did that happen?  Somewhere along the daily mundane routines my little baby turned 3 and a school sprung a rather enthusiastic pre-school place on us.  I most definitely wasn't ready, but off she went and hey, here we are six months later.  It's not too bad after all.  My little darling baby is now walking running around, talking, singing, everything really!

My crafting self has been hiding away a bit for the past year or so but is coming out of hibernation.

I've been learning a little bit of Japanese again and getting my geek on with some subbed anime to help me along.

I picked up the DSLR again after a long, long, loooooong hiatus, and here's the result:

Yep, that's my little pudding pop Freybs.  She's a big girl now!  I'd show you some pictures of the big madam but they all came out a little bit drunk.  Better luck next time eh?

Blogging for Life

Isn’t it crazy.  I’m reading a blog that dates back to 2003.  I hadn’t even finished 6^th form in 2003.  So over ten years ago?  That’s dedication, that’s love of the craft.  I don’t think I’ve ever stuck at anything for so long.  I’d like to though.  Ten years from now I’d like to be able to look back and maybe my writing style wasn’t perfect but I did it without any kind of shame.

It's all change here in the Loungeturtle house.  I'm very much looking forward to what the future brings.

This is what I like to see.  Yeah, so it's been almost a year!  Terrible, absolutely terrible, I'm an awful blogger really ;)  Life has changed, as it always does.  We grow a little older, a little closer, a little further apart.  I've made peace with things that have shaken me before, and feel so much happier for it.  So last time we were here I was complaining about being a little too unfit, but hey, look at me now!  I'm fit as anything, and entered into Race for Life next month.  Very much looking forward to it.

Taking a little bit of a different direction with blogging.  I never intended to be a mummy-blogger but it happened naturally -  I'm a mother primarily and my girls have a massive part of my life.  Katie has started preschool and has settled in well.  My little Freya who last time was so poorly is growing up to be such a clever toddler.  I'm endlessly proud of my children and there is absolutely nothing conceivable in this world that could be any more of an achievement than having and raising them.  I count myself as very lucky every day.

But yes, I'm going somewhere different.  It's where I'd originally intended to go with my blog, it's all about me.  Because asides from my number one spot as a wife and mother, there's a little bit of Sarah coming back out into the world.  It's like being born again, figuring out where you stand in life and where your heart is taking you.  I think any mother would agree, that it's a hard transition going from being your own person, to being truly devoted and dedicated to a little life (or two), and then somehow rediscovering yourself when they start to gain their own feet.

So I guess you could say, I'm on the road, just kinda taking in the sights for now.  I'll see where it takes me...

Tree-Parkour?

So, we went to our local country park again yesterday, it was lovely.  No pictures, blogger fail as I forgot my camera and my phone is shamefully at capacity for images!  As I'm sure I've said before we don't get much time during the week to do much of anything as a family and when we do have that one day a week it usually rains (thank you England).  We had a little picnic, went to the park there, got icecream and got well and truly lost on one of the nature trails that was pushchair friendly.  It was just far too hot to be carrying Freya in the Connecta but we did find that the Babyjogger pushchair was just awesome on the rocky trails.  Saw a guy doing what I can only describe as tree-parkour... is that a thing?  Or is it just running down cliffs into trees and jumping off in a forest?  Well, either way it looked awesome, and brought me to shame huff-puffing up the hills through the forest haha.  I'm so unfit which I'm hoping to change very soon.  We're off on holiday in twelve days (and counting) which I'm ecstatically excited about - I promise I'll be taking pictures there.  After that a new leaf is going to be turned and I'm going to be getting super dooper fit.

Today I

Today I broke down at a Google advert.  Yup, I'm that person.  God knows, how our children are so precious.  And we're all somebody's child.

The events of the past few days have been harrowing to say the least - a young man, too young, lost his life yesterday.  He was essentially at the time a civilian walking along the street.  And by civilian I mean that he was just like any other person walking along and going about his business.  I'm sure we all know the details of the crime so I won't go into them but it really brings home how precious life is.  The men who committed this murder claimed that they wanted to start a war in this country.  There is no war.  There is no war here, only a handful of extremists, fanatics.  And it saddens me that there are people on the "other" side of the fence who are ready to retaliate.  Against who?  Against innocent people so far separated from the real criminals here.  For me?  I lump the two into the same category.  Those British people who are waging war against people who share a religion with the murderers may as well walk arm in arm with them as far as I am concerned.  They want nothing more than to simply hate and to find a reason, any reason, to hate.  I for one, will hold my children closer, and think of the poor child left fatherless, and then on to all of the children left parentless by mindless violence.

I'll hold my children close, cherish the days I have with my young family, appreciate my family around me and the friends that I hold dear.  I have some truly amazing friends and I don't spend enough time making memories with them or making it known that I love them.  Some true friends that have stood by me through the years through difficult times and good ones.  I'll think hard about what it is exactly I want from life, in addition to all that.  I'll think hard about what I can do to improve myself as a person, and put a little more good in the world where there is so much hatred.  I'll be spending time living my life to the full.

Little Things

I really need to go find me some dandelions.  It's such a strange thing to be caught between far too busy to do things and far too bored with nothing to do.  We're far too busy as a family - now that I'm working after maternity leave has ended and Tom's hours are a bit sucky too, we have one day a week to do things as a family.  The rest of the time us girls are limited to how far our little leggies can carry us or how far the bus goes if we're lucky enough to be let on (damn buggy limits).  I'd much rather do things as a family but for now we spend our time wisely.  I've never hated running errands so much as they take up far too much valuable time!  But yes, I'm going stir crazy with all our bad weather.  Hopefully summer isn't teasing us today and we'll be off out somewhere nice seeing things on our day off this week.

Our Girly Girl

Miss Katie Sofia:

Somehow a girl like me, a bit of a tomboy as a kid, ended up with a very girly first born.  Katie's got a massive thing for ballerinas and fairies right now, so all twirly looking dresses are ballerina dresses.  She does little twirls and kicks and has a love for Happyland fairies.  She also loves pink.  I do wonder whether Freya will be the same - I think all little girls look up to their big sisters.

Freya is doing much better now and has cut her very first tooth while propping herself up on all fours for the first time.  She's been practicing rocking back and forth, but I think she'll be walking before she crawls.  At the rate she's going she'll probably be walking before she actually sits properly.  She's just in such a hurry to go places.

Katie's doing brilliantly too, she's taken to drawing (not on the walls just yet though, give her time!) and loves drawing faces, zig zags and circles.  She's doing really well with her reading considering her age - she can read numbers 4 and 5 and the letter x.  It's something!  I keep trying to get her to write the letter K but she's probably a bit too young as she's not having any of it.  She's started counting all the way up to thirteen, misses a few then counts from sixteen to twenty.  Clever sausage.  I'm very proud of both of my clever little girls.

Poorly Pud

Our dearest, darling little baby daughter Freya fell ill on Wednesday suddenly. With her temperature soaring to 40.5 degrees she was hospitalised with a nasty infection. I've never quite felt so helpless as when my little girl was hooked up to a drip and crying and clinging to me for an entire night. I spent a lot of time rocking, shushing and holding my baby close, and watching helplessly as she was prodded and poked with needles. My heart broke a million times over as she looked at me crying with those pleading eyes. She's most definitely on the mend now thankfully.

And there is that word, "thankful". Staying on a childrens' ward for a few days has truly opened my eyes to just how lucky I am to have happy, healthy children. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have to keep returning and know that your child may never recover from a condition or illness they may have. I'm most definitely going to make the best of all the time I have with my children, and in my life in general from now on.

She's been allowed home for the first night in four nights but we're back to the ward tomorrow first thing for a scan and some blood tests. Fingers crossed that it's good news and she can be discharged and come home properly!